


all that's golden

by herrlucifer



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 11:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3648183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herrlucifer/pseuds/herrlucifer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>lachesism</b>
  <br/>
  <i>n. the desire to be struck by disaster—to survive a plane crash, to lose everything in a fire, to plunge over a waterfall—which would put a kink in the smooth arc of your life, and forge it into something hardened and flexible and sharp, not just a stiff prefabricated beam that barely covers the gap between one end of your life and the other.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	all that's golden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/gifts).



> for the [morning glories ficathon](http://blevins.livejournal.com/31865.html). 
> 
> prompt: any | anything from [the dictionary of obscure sorrows](http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/).
> 
> essentially the premise is ike has messed with reality so jade never got sent to the academy and her mother never died. the title is from the song 'by the throat' by chvrches. i hope you enjoy!

**lachesism**   
_n. the desire to be struck by disaster—to survive a plane crash, to lose everything in a fire, to plunge over a waterfall—which would put a kink in the smooth arc of your life, and forge it into something hardened and flexible and sharp, not just a stiff prefabricated beam that barely covers the gap between one end of your life and the other._

* * *

 Jade grows up scraping her knees and playing soccer and learning how to braid her own hair. The most interesting thing that's ever happened to her is a car crash that she and her mother escaped with mild concussions and a little bit of whiplash, and she goes to prom with Steven O'Hare in a bright pink chiffon dress that clashes horribly with her long red hair, and she writes too much and smiles as wide and bright as the sun every time she gets good news. She doesn't set any fires, except for that one time she was drinking beers with her friends in a field and she dropped the lighter, but that was an honest to God accident and nobody ever caught them so it doesn't matter. She graduates on time with good grades and gets praise-filled recommendations from her teachers, and when she's accepted to the University of Texas at Austin everyone's happy for her.

Her family sees her off at the airport, her father telling her how proud he is she's getting out of Iowa and her mother fussing over her and Jimmy picking her up and swinging her in a circle. She only cries a little bit on the plane, and by the time she touches down she's excited to start again.

But the blistering heat of Austin doesn't make Jade more interesting, it just gives her more freckles and a tendency to say the word 'y'all'. And she loves it, she does, but she feels like something's missing, like there's a gaping hole in her chest that she can't fill with sunshine or ink or dates with awkward boys that open the door for her and blush at every little thing.

As guilty as it makes her feel, she's not happy. She starts to think she never will be.

She writes a novel about a girl who loses everything. She imagines that it happens to her, and then she starts to daydream about it. She _needs_ something bad to happen to her, because right now she feels like she's always waiting for something terrible that should have happened long ago. She thinks that her mother should have died in that car crash and immediately hates herself for it. It starts to get bad, and by winter break she's got a fake I.D. and is making up excuses not to visit home.

* * *

Christmas Eve finds her sitting in a bar with a rum and coke she still doesn't know how to drink without coughing on. Eventually she decides she's had enough and prepares to begin the walk back her dorm, but the men sitting near her are giving her looks she doesn't like.

"Hey, Red," one of them slurs at her with a grin as she pushes her chair back. She glares at him, walking past with her back straight, but he grabs at her wrist and she feels her pulse quicken. She knows self-defense, though, and she prepares to go for his eyes–

But then a hand falls lightly on her shoulder and she starts. The creep lets go and she goes still as she hears a smooth voice in her ear.

"Ready to leave, darling? I'm so glad I found you." The boy behind her is tall and slender, but there's something intimidating about him nonetheless. He doesn't make eye contact with her, just stares down the man with a slight smirk on his face, and she shivers at the feel of his hand against her bare shoulder. His pamls are soft.

Jade nods, face frozen, and stiffly continues onwards, the boy following a couple feet behind. "Evening, gentlemen," he calls to the men as they walk out the door, unspoken threat thick behind his words.

"I could have taken care of myself, you know," she says when they're a minute or so away from the bar. She's shrugging on her jacket and she almost misses the way he looks at her, full of longing and fear and something else that she doesn't know. It makes her shiver again, but it's not from the cold.

"I'm sure you could've." The sarcasm in his voice is thick. She reaches out and smacks at his arm, and he snickers at her frown. It feels entirely too normal.

They walk back to her dorm in silence after that, and she doesn't know what comes over her to make her trust him but she does, God, she _does_ , and everything from his crooked smile to his tired eyes to his asshole remarks makes her ache for something she doesn't remember. She stops still in front of her building and he stops too, facing her. Before she can change her mind, she blurts out "doyouwanttocomein?" with her cheeks growing red before she finishes her sentence, but he just smiles softly. It looks wrong on his face.

"I can't."

She closes her eyes in embarrassment- fuck, she totally misread the signals, didn't she, he probably has a girlfriend and was just trying to do something nice- but then she feels the brush of lips, soft as a feather, against her forehead. She gasps, whirling around to find him, to tell him to wait, but he's already gone in the darkness.

For a moment, she remembers things that have never happened- a cave, shooting stars, his face looking young and cruel in the dying light of twilight- but it's gone as quickly as it comes. She feels a splitting in her chest, like a chasm is opening, like her heart is breaking in half.

And she doesn't know why, but this feels like her great tragedy. This is the car crash, this is the train wreck; this is her splitting apart and splintering into a thousand pieces.

She goes to bed without taking off her makeup, and the next morning she wakes up from nightmares with a name on her lips, whispering it to herself like a prayer.

_Ike. Ike. Ike. Ike._

* * *

 She cuts her hair.


End file.
